Apple on Tuesday quietly released its much-anticipated Apple TV "Take 2" software update, which introduces a brand new on-sreen interface and allows users to rent high definition movies directly from their widescreen TVs.

The update is available for existing Apple TV owners by selecting the "Update Software" option under the "Settings" menu. Once selected, the software requires approximately 6 minutes to download on a broadband connection and another 10 to 15 minutes to install. During the install process, it appears as if the Apple TV runs through three distinct update sessions in which the Apple logo and update progress bar will appear, complete an update, and then disappear three times.

With iTunes Movie Rentals and the new Apple TV software update (AppleInsider's First Look), users will be able to just click a button on their remote to rent movies from a catalog of over 1,000 titles, including over 100 titles in high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, with no computer required.

DVD-quality iTunes Movie Rentals are $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.

The Apple TV software take 2 software update is available as a free automatic download to all existing Apple TV customers, and will subsequently appear on all newly manufactured versions of the wireless set-top-box.

Apple TV, which includes the Apple Remote, is available for a suggested retail price of $229 for the 40GB model and $329 for the 160GB model (US and Canada). However, Mac Mall is offering free shipping, a $5 instant savings, plus a three percent added discount at checkout (via this link), which brings the cost of the 40GB model down to $217.28 (reflected at checkout).

Now that HD rentals are out, Is the bandwidth closer to 3 mbps or 5 mbps,
to motivate those who are gauging how much money to give to an ISP
for this service. If much higher than 3 mbps, there won't be much
instant gratification to be had amongst most DSL users.

The new horizontal screen layout only applies to iTunes Store rentals. One of my biggest gripes with the Apple TV has been that it requires a widescreen, Hi-Def TV, but the Movie/TV Show menus are laid out vertically. You get 4-5 small lines of text (this is at the highest resolution setting) to describe the movie and the rest of the text is cut off, usually by up to 50%, and you get room enough for only 2 actors.

Search only applies to the iTunes store and YouTube. You can't search your own library.

The horizontal iTunes Store layout would have been common sense for the whole interface and I'm floored that Apple of all companies did not realize this.

...compressed down to a size that would fit on a DVD, except with worse sound than a DVD...

Precisely!!! People see 720p and think that's the quality of the image. I can create a 1080p image that looks worse than a 720p image, those numbers just refer to the dimensions of the frame, not the quality of the image within it. They see 5.1 surround and don't realize that, like mp3s, the audio streams have been compressed. It's all about the quality of the compression. You can't take a 25GB HD movie, compress it down to 2GB(?) and expect it to look just as good. It adds mosquito noise, color banding (and heavy dithering to compensate), loss of detail, and loss of color data.

People who say "Looks good enough to me" need to rent the same movie on both systems (Blu-ray or HD-DVD vs download) and compare. Freeze frame the same frame and jump back and forth. Play your favorite scene back on both systems (and crank up the surround). Then when you're done, you can spend the rest of the week watching the extras off of the DVD before you send it back to Blockbuster or Netflix.

AppleTV is great for missed programming. There are 3-4 times in the last year where I missed Tivoing a show. AppleTV makes a lot of sense there. Same with catching up on a series. AppleTV offers a much better viewing experience than sitting in front of your computer screen in those cases.

AppleTV is great for missed programming. There are 3-4 times in the last year where I missed Tivoing a show. AppleTV makes a lot of sense there. Same with catching up on a series. AppleTV offers a much better viewing experience than sitting in front of your computer screen in those cases.

I disagee. When I DVR TV programming(Colbert Report) it looks exactly like when it was broadcast. When I pay Apple iTunes for Colbert report it actually looks worse. This is on a 42" HDTV with HDMI inputs.

I disagee. When I DVR TV programming(Colbert Report) it looks exactly like when it was broadcast. When I pay Apple iTunes for Colbert report it actually looks worse. This is on a 42" HDTV with HDMI inputs.

I'm not sure what you disagree with - your response didn't contradict anything he said.

Was looking forward to being able to browse my movie collection by genre (and maybe search for a specific movie)...

Alas - Selecting a movie by genre only appears to be possible when you want to rent one. I guess Apple thinks most people will have no more than a handfull of movies on their system (I have about 400 now, having converted a large selection of my DVD collection to .mp4 and streaming this from a Mac mini)

Waiting on ATV Take3 . . . !

(and now after connection to my iTunes on the Mac mini the whole movie rental section seems to have disappeared completely...?)

That's good, but just to make it clear, that is OUTPUT. Not the incoming file. It's not going to play a 1080p data stream. Many DVD players can also output 1080p, but the player only has 480p data to use, so it's just an upscale.

You probably can hack in 1080p file playback, but it probably won't do it without occasional, if not frequent video stuttering or dropped frames.

I'm not sure what you disagree with - your response didn't contradict anything he said.

OMG- here we go again. I'm beginning to feel like Miss Sally in a kindergarten class.
He said"AppleTV is great for missed programming."
And I disagree. I'm saying I disagree because they quality is not a good as the original- if anything, it's worse. If it's a digital copy it should look the same as when recorded on a DVR. Also, when you buy a DVD of a TV show/series, if anything, it looks better than the originally broadcast not worse. I think the main reason is that Apple TV show downloads should be optimized for large HD TV's not iPods.

OMG- here we go again. I'm beginning to feel like Miss Sally in a kindergarten class.
He said"AppleTV is great for missed programming."
And I disagree. I'm saying I disagree because they quality is not a good as the original- if anything, it's worse. If it's a digital copy it should look the same as when recorded on a DVR. Also, when you buy a DVD of a TV show/series, if anything, it looks better than the originally broadcast not worse. I think the main reason is that Apple TV show downloads should be optimized for large HD TV's not iPods.

The quality issues are all well and good, but if you miss a TV show on wednesday night, catching that missed episode on DVD before the next epsiode a week later is not an option. It doesn't matter how good the quality is of some other alternative if you can't actually get the show to watch in a timely manner.

Considering that there are few if any alternative ways to catch a missed TV show the next day, using aTV and iTunes to watch on a TV seems like a pretty good option.

Because most DVDs have DTS 5.1, which has several times the bandwidth of Dolby 5.1. And <i>it's all about bandwidth</i>. This seems like a hard thing for some people to understand, but generally the more bandwidth you give something, the higher quality you get. iTMS HD rentals give their media streams about the same bandwidth as DVDs... so if you upconvert a DVD to 720p (or 1080i or 1080p or 2160p or 17200p.. the output resolution is irrelevent) you'll probably get similar results.

The quality issues are all well and good, but if you miss a TV show on wednesday night, catching that missed episode on DVD before the next epsiode a week later is not an option. It doesn't matter how good the quality is of some other alternative if you can't actually get the show to watch in a timely manner.

Considering that there are few if any alternative ways to catch a missed TV show the next day, using aTV and iTunes to watch on a TV seems like a pretty good option.

'

Quality indeed does matter if you are a videophile which you obviously are not. Why did you buy an ATV? You should stick with a VCR- it does exactly what your looking for if quality is not an issue for you.
ATV was made for high-end equipment. Quality is exactly what it is all about.